


A Quiet Moment

by sanddrake



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 04:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21113006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanddrake/pseuds/sanddrake
Summary: A quiet moment between Lucifer and Sandalphon after everything around the angels is resolved.  Assumes Lucifer's return.





	A Quiet Moment

It was the first time in a long time that Sandalphon felt like he could simply exist.

His cheek rested against Lucifer’s shoulder, and Lucifer’s arm was loosely wrapped around Sandalphon’s waist. The armor which Lucifer and Sandalphon habitually wore was gone, stripped down to just the cloth underneath. And the gentle smell of sunlight filled Sandalphon’s mouth and nose, with a faint, chocolaty scent of coffee underneath it. It had been a long, arduous journey. Sandalphon had fought, and grown, and learned as he journeyed to bring Lucifer back. And so this moment was a relief, the return to peace, the return to safety, the return to innocence.

He didn’t need to be the Supreme Primarch, and neither did Lucifer. They were finally free to simply be only what they wanted to be, nothing more, nothing less. No expectations around an unrevealed purpose. No machinations in the background. They might — would — lend a hand here and there. But the responsibility no longer rested on their shoulders. 

In that freedom, they had come to this small, deserted island in a quiet corner of Phantagrande, an island so tiny it had never been landed on and never been named. They sat on the grass on a small bluff over the beach of the lake on the northern corner of the island, though it was hard to tell the center from the corners. The water stretched out before them, sparkling under the bright glare of the sun overhead. Sandalphon could have been anywhere and been content. It didn’t have to be here. But this was where Lucifer had chosen to go, and Sandalphon had followed. Whatever experience, whatever essence of this place that Lucifer wanted, Sandalphon was happy to be at his side. All he needed was the warmth of Lucifer’s skin against his cheek, the solid realness of him there at Sandalphon’s side. This moment was precious. Every moment was precious. And he hoped, a little selfishly, that such moments would last forever.

The cries of birds from above caught his attention, and he tilted his head, looking up at them as they flew past. They looked tiny at this distance, but Sandalphon recognized the type. Their wingspans were wider than his extended arms. They were predators without equal. To watch them fly was to savor the grace achieved only in excellence.

“Do you like them?” Lucifer asked, gently stirring Sandalphon out of his reverie.

“They’re amazing,” Sandalphon replied. Even at this distance he could pick out the subtle movement of the birds’ wings as they caught the thermals and rose even higher, to the point where a normal skydweller would have trouble following them. Yet Sandalphon, as most angels, could still pick out the tiny alignment shifts in the feathers and the adjustments in the muscles that turned their intent to action. Birds might not be the most advanced creations, but they knew how to exercise every bit of the flexibility that they had been granted. There was a beauty in such a perfectly balanced creature. And Sandalphon had found over the few hours that he had sat here, at Lucifer’s side, that many of the creatures he had seen exhibited the same traits. Power and grace in equal measure.

As the Primarch of Evolution, Lucifer had a hand in all of them. He had guided them to reach their current form. It was both incredible and intimidating. For all that Sandalphon had quelled Lucilius’ plans as passed down to Belial and Beelzebub, for all that he’d recovered Lucifer and managed to rebuild his body and reinstate his consciousness within it, it still paled in comparison to the thousands of years of work which Lucifer had spilled into making the Sky Realm a perfectly balanced, perfectly beautiful place, where its inhabitants could thrive. Sandalphon couldn’t compete with that. With a smile and a shake of his head, Sandalphon added, “You’re amazing, to create these things.”

He felt Lucifer’s indrawn breath in the shift of his shoulder underneath Sandalphon’s cheek, and Sandalphon sighed. He’d slipped again. He knew that Lucifer didn’t want praise or admiration. It was sometimes difficult to tell what he wanted, but Sandalphon sensed the reservation in Lucifer every time he received a compliment. Suddenly a gap would open up between them, filled with awkwardness. Lucifer never let it last more than a few moments, but those moments sometimes felt like years.

This time, though, he didn’t change the topic.

“I didn’t create them,” Lucifer said, his tone still as gentle as always. “I… only nurtured them.”

Lucifer leaned into Sandalphon then, his arm tightening to keep Sandalphon in place. The far off call of the birds and the whisper of the water as it swelled up onto the beach, driven by the wind, those sounds filled the silence between them until it overflowed. Sandalphon worried his lip with his teeth, trying to find another way to restart the conversation, but his mind kept circling back to Lucifer’s denial. He began to speak, hesitated, then finally committed himself. “But you managed their evolution, didn’t you? They wouldn’t have become what they are without you.”

“I’m not certain how much influence I had on them,” Lucifer admitted, his tone distant. “Without me, would they have been subject to forces that would have caused them to evolve differently? Perhaps they would have been stunted… perhaps they would have flourished. When I was given the option, I let them be, to develop as they would have done naturally, and I believe that they would have ended up much the same had I not meddled at all. This beauty…” Lucifer was silent for several long moments, but Sandalphon could tell he was thinking, and eventually he continued. “…I did not create it.”

“You think too little of yourself,” Sandalphon said. His frustration was bare and grating to his own ears. It wasn’t his place to criticize Lucifer, but it felt wrong to simply listen to Lucifer criticizing himself. Lucilius and Belial and Avatar would have destroyed the Sky Realms if Lucifer hadn’t intervened. None of this could exist without Lucifer. They owed everything to him, their silent, gentle guardian. “Aren’t you proud of any of it?”

Lucifer turned his head, pressing his cheek against the crown of Sandalphon’s head. Sandalphon’s indignation waned, replaced with a bit of guilt, but mostly just happiness at Lucifer’s presence. On its heels came embarrassment. His cheeks burned, but he couldn’t bear to pull away. He had waited two millenia for this closeness. Perhaps someday he would grow tired of it, but for now… for now, Lucifer deserved everything, and Sandalphon would willingly accept all these little tokens, these tiny moments that he had always wanted and never had.

“There is one thing I created which I am very proud of.”

Lucifer’s words surprised him, and Sandalphon’s mind stuttered into motion. One thing? One thing in all of the Sky Realms? It had to be something which Lucifer had directly put his hand to. Sandalphon had grown more familiar with Lucifer’s duties since assuming them himself, but he knew that he had never been as deeply involved as Lucifer had been back in the days when Sandalphon had spent every day waiting for him in the garden. They had discussed so little of what Lucifer had done when he was away. Their conversations had always been pleasant, not deep. And the faint memories which Sandalphon had inherited hadn’t covered the specifics of that time. They had only covered the creation of the angels, the rebellion, and the aftermath. But Lucifer wouldn’t have left it unsaid unless he thought Sandalphon could figure it out.

Sandalphon drew in a breath suddenly, remembering that first time Lucifer had offered him coffee. That rich, appealing aroma, and then the horrifying realization that he didn’t like it at all. Muddy and bitter. And yet he’d fished up a smile and told Lucifer he wanted to share it again. And the second time had been better, though still terrible. And somehow over the years either he had changed or the coffee had changed, and he’d begun to pick up the subtle, half-hidden flavors, like the tiny flowers hidden among the grass. That depth and complexity, the endless field of experimentation and new discoveries. Of course Lucifer would be proud of that. Sandalphon smiled, the expression still feeling slightly awkward after all those years of anger and hatred and sadness. Eventually, would he adapt to smiling as he’d adapted to coffee? “I like it too,” Sandalphon said shyly.

“Oh?” Lucifer sounded surprised, and Sandalphon wondered whether he’d said the wrong thing again. But then Lucifer chuckled, the breath of his laughter tickling Sandalphon’s hair, and Sandalphon relaxed, warmed from the inside out. Lucifer’s satisfaction was warm and affectionate as he added, “I’m glad to hear that.”


End file.
